Category Archives: Personal Thoughts

“O tested and storm-battered soul, perhaps the Lord is sending you through this trial to develop your gifts. You have some gifts that would never have been discovered if not for the trials. Do you not know that your faith never appears as great in the warm summer weather as it does during a cold winter? Afflictions are often the dark settings God uses to mount the jewels of His children’s gifts, causing them to shine even brighter.

Our Lord often takes us into the dark in order to tell us something. It may be the darkness of a home where bereavement has drawn the blinds; the darkness of a lonely and desolate life, in which some illness has cut us off from the light and activity of life; or the darkness of some crushing sorrow and disappointment. Hidden treasures and secret truths can be discovered in the darkness with the light from heaven. Unfortunately, yet thankfully, there is no shortcut to a life of faith.

A power plant produces power through friction. God, in a similar way, creates more power in our lives through friction. Let us pour out our hearts to God, yet not give them over to the hands of discouragement.” –excerpts from Streams in the Desert, p. 146-147, 149-150

“Your hope will not be cut off [or disappointed].” –Proverbs 23:18

The secret of knowing God’s complete sufficiency in our lives is through the uncomfortable event of coming to the end of everything in ourselves, and our circumstances (Streams in the Desert, p. 146). When we feel useless, lonely, removed from life and like everything is against us, maybe we aren’t as “far off” as we think, but “in process” to becoming greatly used by God. Let us not retreat in fear, anxiety, despair, self-condemnation, loneliness or comparison, but pour out our hearts to One who knows us, and our purposes here, better than any other.

I’ve seen the above words and truth happen in my life – it is not a lie. A beautiful song I can’t get enough of right now to keep my eyes looking upward, by City Harmonic: “Holy (Wedding Day)” Just let it soak in if you choose to listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3oLqAmXc-c

Have any of you seen hard spots transformed to sweet places, or night seasons uncover gifts?

Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? How can sorrow and loss birth anything positive? Most of us, including myself, despise pain. Wasn’t that partly the motivation behind original sin, humans attempting to avoid pain and be in control of personal pleasure? So, why does our loving God allow unsolicited suffering to consume us with no visual resolution? I don’t know the answers, but I do believe the Master Artist is at work in us even when we don’t understand. He sees our potential, and hearts, as he paints each brushstroke of our lives with care.

The moments of sorrow I’m talking about pressing into, are as one of my friends recently described, “the place where life has driven you to your knees and all the faith you have is going into just hanging on.”

I realize going here is enough to drive us all to the bakery, but hang in here with me a minute. Yes, our fleshly desire is to take a detour from life’s construction zones, but a devotional I read recently on sorrow might provide some insightful and encouraging words I’d like to interject here:

“Sorrow, under the power of divine grace, performs various ministries in our lives. Sorrow reveals unknown depths of the soul and unknown capacities for suffering and service. Lighthearted, frivolous people are always shallow and are never aware of their own meagerness or lack of depth. Sorrow is God’s tool to plow the depths of the soul, that it may yield richer harvests. If humankind were still in a glorified state, having never fallen, then the strong floods of divine joy would be the force God would use to reveal our souls’ capacities. But in a fallen world, sorrow, yet with despair removed, is the power chosen to reveal us to ourselves. Accordingly, it is sorrow that causes us to take the time to think deeply and seriously.

Sorrow makes us move more slowly and considerately and examine our motives and attitudes. It opens within us the capacities of the heavenly life, and it makes us willing to set our capacities afloat on a limitless sea of service for God and for others.

Imagine a village of lazy people living at the foot of a great mountain range, yet who have never ventured out to explore the hidden valleys and canyons in the back mountains. One day a thunderstorm goes careening through the mountains revealing the hidden valleys like echoing trumpets and their inner recesses, like the twisted shapes of a giant seashell. The villagers at the foot of the hills are astonished at the labyrinths and the unexplored recesses of a region so nearby and yet so unknown. And so it is with many people who casually live on the outer edge of their own souls until great thunderstorms of sorrow reveal hidden depths within, which were never before know or suspected.

God never uses anyone to a great degree until He breaks the person completely. It is in the school of adversity that sorrow expands and deepens the soul.” (from the Heavenly Life)

Might God develop our character through sorrow and affliction now, because in the fullness of His redemptive, overcoming nature He got creative after the fall with the Enemie’s tactics? Tribulation can, ushered by God’s grace, become the door to triumph.

What you are reading now (my whole blog essentially) is a souvenir from my sorrow thus far. I wouldn’t be writing, cooking, much less here, if it weren’t for this divine, yet painful, progression in my life. The pain has become tweezors to extract His gifts tucked deep inside me. It requires, and still does, much time, sweat and tears. Not saying I would love to relive the past 7 years, but in my heart of hearts, from where I stand now, it has been completely worth it and I’m not “out of the woods yet”.

“But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.…..we have placed our confidence in Him and He will continue to rescue us.” (2 Corinthians 1:9 & 10)

Now, I’m going to pose a question that may make your toes curl and stomach churn. It did mine, but I’m throwing it out there anyway because it’s been valuable to me:

What would it look like for us to embrace suffering?

Not to avoid our problems, or throw them over “there”, unhandled, to fester, and grow further pain and addictions. But, to look our pain and circumstances straight in the eye, along with all the painful emotions that arise, with our Heavenly Counselor and Friend by our side. I’m not saying to wallow in our sorrows, but to listen to what our Creator might be revealing to us in the midst of hardship.

Go ahead, let’s ask the hard questions and tell Him what’s honestly on our hearts. It takes time, like peeling away the layers of an onion. Not stuffing our feelings is part of the process.

Never will you or I be perfect on this earth, but please friends, let’s do this together; for the sake of our freedom, others, and God’s Holy Kingdom. We might as well run this race together, not fleeing or minimizing our own, or our brothers and sisters pain. Strength in numbers, right? Let us painstakingly plummet our buckets of sorrow, into God’s deep well of living, healing water. And if you don’t have a bucket right now, maybe someone else needs encouragement pulling theirs up to the well.

Please think on this if you choose and post any comments you may have.

I look down at my feet covered in thick mud. I look up to the sky dark with clouds. Where do I go from here?

Yesterday I ran with such swiftness through fields of flowers in the bright sunlight. I held high the grand promises of life in my hands.

Today those assurances have become to me like melted wax through my fingers. Dripping down and drying over my toes, sinking them further into mushy ground. Haven’t I been this way multiple times before?

The pain I cannot escape pursues me viciously. Things seem better but why do I feel the same? I cry out, “Please give me the faith and strength to carry on.”

I’ve heard it repeatedly, to praise and have faith in the storms. To look up, keeping eyes heavenward, even when all circumstances seem contrary to promises received and believed.

I wrestle with my thoughts. Can I really believe and have faith when my feelings don’t align? This unsolved reality continues to rip apart my heart.

Why is it so hard to trust in the unseen? Why can’t I believe beyond my senses? Timely truth grips me hard as I read – it’s as if I’ve become awakened from a bad dream……

“You will never learn faith in comfortable surroundings. God gives us His promises in a quiet hour, seals our covenants with great and gracious words, and then steps back, waiting to see how much we believe. He then allows the Tempter to come, and the ensuing test seems to contradict all that He has spoken. This is when faith wins its crown. This is the time to look up through the storm, and among the trembling, frightened sailors declare, ‘I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.’ ” -Acts 27:25 (from Streams in the Desert, p. 18)

“Faith is not a sense, nor sight, nor reason, but simply taking God at His word.” –Christmas Evans

“The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.” –George Mueller

This Hosea verse has been enticing me for days now and I think it can bring some purpose to this struggle, “Then they will seek My face; in their affliction [misery] they will earnestly seek Me.” (Hosea 5:15) The word earnest jumped out at me, and as I looked up its definition, what I found was interesting. Earnest is to be fervent, purposeful, determined, implies having qualities of depth and firmness, serious, sincere, resolute, ambitious, implies depth and being steadily and soberly eager in pursuing it, serious and thoughtful, suggests genuineness, trustworthiness and absence of superficiality.

Bizarrely encouraging, is it not? Between that definition and the writing excerpt above, starts to light a fire in you to carry on, doesn’t it? And not just carry on, but move into a place of such intense faith, beyond emotion, that you start to come into the intended role of being more than a conqueror through Him who loves us.

“O My children, what do you need today? Is it comfort? Is it courage? Is it healing? Is it guidance? Behold, I assure you, whatever it is you need, if you will look to Me, I will supply.” (Come Away Beloved, p. 60)

He will lead us to higher ground. I’m trying to be faithful with little, to be faithful with much.

“He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.” –Psalm 91:4

Life has continued to take some unexpected turns for me the last few weeks. I am currently living thousands of miles away from my husband and family, whom I love deeply. Last winter in the midwest was very hard on me and my health. My husband and I felt lead for me to move in with his family on the West coast, to see if the warmer weather positively influences my body. I don’t understand (and have had a few “moments”), but feel deep peace that I am in the right place and at the right time.

I’m trying to give voice to the growing pains of adjustment, hold on to hope and remain open to daily opportunities. The past has helped me to trust in the unseen, but each time new chances arise to further exercise my faith, they prove, once again, to be difficult for me to accept. It’s easy to talk about crossing the Red Sea, but when you are standing before the deep, unparted waters, called to take the first step, it’s a different story.

So, moving seemed like the symbolic first step for me……waiting in hope and letting go of fears daily, for the waters to part. I think I’m starting to see the water shift but know I can’t ultimately rely on circumstances or emotions for my grounding. My heart desires to continually lean on, and get to know the One who created me. To come as I am, seeking His heart in my misunderstanding and come.

Joy is filling me.

Have you ever felt called to takes steps you don’t understand, but know it’s what you are hearing and have peace to do? Please share, if you feel led, your response as well as what followed (provision, disappointment, fear, feelings, etc.)

My roommate in college had a hilarious dad. I had the pleasure of going on one of their summer family vacations after my freshmen year. In the airport my roommate’s dad made a comment to his wife of many years, “Dear, you have a weight problem”. Just as I wanted to punch him he responded, “you can’t wait 5 minutes!”

Solitude, waiting and silence…..why do we have a hard time with them? What feelings do these words stir up in you? A sense of peace and calm? Or did you feel a twinge of displeasure deep in your stomach at the very thought of quiet? Why are some of us so afraid of silence? Think about it. When you know down time is coming in your life or day do you embrace it? Or do you get out your pen, paper or laptop to jot down an exhaustive to do list, trying to fill every moment of anticipated space? Well, that is what I struggle with.

If some of us are so strongly propelled in the opposite direction of silence, like
opposing magnets, maybe there is great value in that which we are pulled from? Products of being too busy in my life were fatigue, sickness, irritability, anxiousness, fear, hard heartedness and basically missing the sweet pleasure of life’s simple things. When I first started staying home the words I heard were “in quietness and confidence are your strength. But you would have none of it.” (Isaiah 30:15) Ugh, knife to my stomach!

Silence almost has a way of reducing us down to our core. Wringing out what really matters and is bothering us, you know? Maybe that is why we are tempted to run from it. Solitude is defined as the state of being alone, separated from other people, a quality of quiet remoteness or seclusion in places from which human activity is generally absent. Maybe we’re afraid of being alone? Or what might come up if we’re not distracted.

“Small wonder people drink too much, eat too much, watch too much TV, basically check out. If they allow themselves to feel the depth of their actual longing for life and love and happiness. . . . it’s just too much to bear”(John Eldredge – Epic, p. 79-80)

If valuable things carry a heavy price then silence must bring treasure to our lives, right? Rest and silence do seem like expensive commodities these days. I’m fortunate that I was laid out due to illness, but is that what it takes for us to stop? I don’t know. Silence can be a door for peace and calm to enter our souls. I wanted to experience the fruit of those attributes in my life but didn’t want to do the “work” to harvest them. I’m not claiming to have all this mastered or understood, but there is something valuable and untapped in this whole idea.

“I have brought you to this place. Make the most of it. Drink in the silence. Seek solitude. Listen to the silence. It will teach you. It will build strength. Let others share it with you. It is priceless. It is little to be found elsewhere.” (Come Away Beloved, p. 205)

Now, I don’t want to neglect that everyone’s journey is different. We all go through different life phases and experiences so silence can take on varying forms. “He will be gracious if you ask for help” (Isaiah 30:19). I’m sure we all need help in this department. Even though we are human beings we don’t just naturally be, if you know what I mean. It doesn’t hurt to ask for help, but we must embrace the times of silence when they come or carve out the consistency in our schedule. Not that we become legalistic, it’s a process, but if it’s truly important to us we’ll do it. I’ve been asking myself and reminded of that sobering truth recently.

The second part to my dry places to land entry was going to be based on spacious places. Then I heard a talk on Sunday that changed my follow-up response. Funny, because I’m writing today about perspective change or “adjusting your stance” as the speaker described it. I’ve always been one that learns through experience – guess I shouldn’t be surprised! In my efforts to try being more flexible, here goes….

To recap Part 1, I brutally described pain, suffering and trial along with the raw emotions that flow from them. The piece was a little “down in the dumps” I admit, but wanted to convey the desolateness of the pits we can face as humans. Today I hope to shine a little light and talk about how struggles can change two important things: 1) our perspective and 2) our priorities (points taken from the talk I heard a few days ago).

I have started to see glimpses of fruit from suffering in my life. It’s not so much that my situation has drastically changed, but my heart and mind have been radically transformed. We can’t always change what comes at us but we can change how we walk through, process and respond to life. A renewed mind is a very dangerously wonderful thing. I’ve slowed down, given myself grace and received more grace because of it. The inexpressible and glorious joy I’m currently experiencing is a product; I’m convinced, of such changes. I’m not being overly dramatic either when I say I don’t think I’ve ever (in my life) felt or enjoyed life in the way I currently am.

Unfortunately my hope offering also comes with a disclaimer. In my experience people don’t just drift into change. As humans, whether we like it or not, enjoy and become accustomed to routine. To combat the urge to stay stagnant we must choose to press in. Press in and press on in whatever way is presented to us. Whether it be waiting, moving forward or sitting in our bathrooms sobbing for a while. That very place, I’m convinced, is where we overcome our fears, doubts and pain. Our minds are renewed and we are eternally changed.

“Once I’m ready to change, the last thing I want to do is patiently endure the consequences of whatever it was that caused me to want to change in the first place.” (Dr. Gregory Jantz)

It can be testing when we receive ample practice in the area of enduring. Unexpected fears can stir up. I feared repeatedly letting out my anger and sadness because I thought the pain would be too much to bear if I let it all go. One thing let out led to another. It reminds me of the Biggest Loser TV show when overweight contestants are pushed to their emotional limits. Barriers and fear are torn down through the process of extreme exercise. Fear is paralyzing and hinders the growth process.

“Swallowing our pain is a very costly way to live our lives” (Stasi Eldredge).

Trying to control life isn’t the answer either (I futilely tried that remedy multiple times). The backdrop to lasting fruit is exemplifying faith in the unseen and unknown. Moses wouldn’t have chosen to lead the Israelites in their flee toward the Red Sea as the Egyptians hunted them down. Would any logical thinking person run only to be trapped by a huge body of water with no escape? He listened and pressed into the presented challenge against all fear and……. the waters parted.

I must warn that when we start pressing in things may seemingly get worse before they get better. Not to crush all forms of hope and celebration, but after victoriously walking through the Red Sea the Israelites wandered in the desert for three days without finding water (Exodus 15). But again, pressing in and having faith, water was provided. No formula exists for the process. (I know, some days I wish I had a life instruction manual too!) Our minds are a powerful thing. Sometimes it can be the barrier between us and our freedom. Don’t settle for less.

I cannot explain how valuable the above process has been for me (remember I’m saying this now that I feel a little better physically – it’s not like a trip to Disneyland). I view life and myself differently now. I know it isn’t easy, and in no way have it mastered myself, but we must validate our experiences by pressing in and see where that takes us. I’m starting to believe it’s worth it.

Job found his legacy through his grief experiences as well; the latter half of his life was much more enjoyable. Suffering has the ability to deepen our character and clothe us in gifts we had little of prior to our difficulties (Streams in the Desert, p. 374). I wouldn’t be writing this very moment if it weren’t for the agonizing gifts of the refining process.

“Along unfamiliar paths I will guide you.” (Isaiah 42:16)

Is there something you are being called to press into? It could be anywhere from the going to go to bed earlier, making a sit down family meal tonight, eating healthier, exercising more, allowing yourself to have more fun, taking a risk, addressing your insecurity or something you’ve put off for a while, or facing a wound/wounds from the past. Don’t force it, but see and listen to what comes. Please feel free to share your thoughts/experiences if you feel inclined.

Pain, suffering, loss, grief, despair, hopelessness, sadness, pain and death are not considered very positive words in the English language. You are probably feeling down right now just reading them! Can negative emotions and circumstances ever lead to positive outcomes? In the midst of dry places you ponder this question. Experiencing any of the above words, especially for long periods of time can wear heavily upon your body, mind and soul. Why does this happen?

Going through my own trials has catapulted me into asking some extremely difficult questions. If God loves me why does he allow extreme suffering? If he’s with me now, how can he watch me feel this deep pain and struggle? Does He really know what He’s doing up there? Are His promises empty? Can ashes really be transformed to beauty, morning to blessing and despair to gladness? It’s easy to believe when life is all butterflies and roses but doubt sets in like a pent-up flood in distressing times of life.

Trials create an interesting form of desperation in us. It can make us more hungry and aware of what we truly need, and desires we might be unacquainted with. Hard times enlarge our capacity for grace, love, joy and life; if we let it. This is where it gets tricky, to press on and press into the opportunities that grow our character and faith. To really trust the One who created us and is for us. Over the past few years I have wondered if we truly need suffering and why does it seem to be the only path to deep, lasting wisdom? (Trust me I have asked to learn what I have in less agonizing ways!)

Are you in a place where you long for freedom from your unwanted reality? Do you desire a place where you can breathe and run free? A safe place. The longing for this secret place grows in trials. There were days I wondered if the pain was all worth it. If life was going to continue as it currently was I didn’t know if I wanted to be in it. As I lay in bed many nights weeping, wanting it all to go away, I wondered if I could, or wanted, to make it through the night. Scary, I know.

I didn’t have a clue when the end would come. Could I hang on? Was what I was being asked to walk through too much for me? Had I met, or even exceeded the threshold of what I could handle? The weight of my situation pressed down on me, with each question pushing out every drop of strength I thought I had left. My mind was becoming weaker and less able to persevere. Drifting further from life and the promises I’d thought were out there for me. Was comfort and direction ever going to come my way?

“We’re all standing with our backs against the wall, sooneror later. Waiting on a phone that never calls, at all.

Heartbreak comes, rolling in like a storm, sooner orlater. Trying to swim but you’re sinking like a stone, alone. And I can feel the fire in the night waiting here.

Baby it’s like we’re walking on a wire through thefire. We’re all waiting on a dreamthat’s hard to own, sooner or later. Trying to feel the high without the low, you know” (Mat Kearney song, “Sooner or Later”)

To “feel the low without the high”….ugh! It is hard to press on when you feel you are going in the opposite direction of your destination. Numerous days I wanted to run (probably more than I can count). Something about us as humans, we want to run as soon as we feel discomfort or pain….or maybe it’s just me. Over the years I lost joy. It slipped through my hands like a wet noodle and there seemed to be nothing I could do about it. The tough part is once joy has left your house you wonder if it will ever return home.

Waking up day after day consistently finding yourself battling in the valley of darkness, vacant of positive emotions is not an elated experience. No matter what you do or advice given to you helps. The rubber meets the road when we are asked to endure. If the tunnel of darkness you find yourself seems never-ending; I get it. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick but a longing fulfilled is like a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12). Experiencing the former without the latter is deflating.

I see now that I needed everything taken away so that I had no distractions and crutches to my opportunities for growth. The hard places I’ve landed have pressed out a reservoir of grace and strength in me I didn’t think possible. This thorny process has widened and deepened my character in proportions greater than I could ever comprehend.

“He who suffers most has most to give….. it is the endurance of one believing life that can produce a multitude.” (Streams in the Desert, p. 384) “Don’t count your life as loss.” (2 Cor. 4:9)

Over the last few years I’ve grown tremendously in my personal confidence. If you knew me before I was always considered the “nice” person. Don’t get me wrong being nice or kind can be a good thing, but not when you are a nicedoormat. Lately I’ve been revisiting why I worry so much about what people think of me. Why do we do this? At the grocery store, Target, the gym and in writing I wonder what the audience around me is thinking.

Am I too much, or not enough? Do people think I look or sound stupid? Does anyone else really think this way? Why do I still act like I believe my worth and work depends on other’s thoughts of me?

Criticism is defined in the dictionary as disapproval, spoken or written opinions that point out one or more faults of somebody or something. That’s it! I feel like I’m being criticized and don’t want to be rejected or “disapproved” of. This “Criticism Complex” probably began when I was younger and was consistently made fun of for my weight. (Many of you probably have your own childhood stories to insert here). Now, it is called bullying and I would say I was a victim back then. Kids can come up with some cruel accusations and they hurl them without a thought of the damage they could or are causing. In my flesh I still think, if only those boys in elementary school knew the pain they inflicted on my innocent heart.

From that point on I was very insecure about my appearance and had extremely low self-esteem. My goal from then on was to “fit in”, whether I was aware of it or not, that was the source my thoughts and actions revolved around. I thought “Well, obviously, who I am isn’t good enough so I must have to try even harder to be someone ‘acceptable’”. You can see where these false ideology seeds get planted. Then, over the years they grow into a tree of uncertainty if watered well by self-doubt and fear.

Trees of fear can also grow an abundance of fruit: anxiety, insecurity, perfectionism and worry were a few of mine. Not to mention low self-confidence, shame, guilt and self-condemnation. From my trees I harvested an abundance of this fowl fruit, bushels of it I’m sure! I have been pruned down considerable the past few years. Actually I was cut off near the root, like an unproductive grapevine completely pruned. After two years of nourishment the vines grow back healthier and with a more abundant yield of grapes than before.

I still struggle at times. Even as I am writing this I wonder what people will think of the truth I am speaking. Will my vulnerability be seen as too much, stupid, helpful or just a lot of words on a page……?

At the risk of sounding selfish and insensitive I don’t think I should care. I’ve been trying to practice going against the grain of who I used to be. Stop falling back into my old default mode. Get out of the box I put myself in, a box that may fit another person but not me. No longer living by my own self made and inflicted rules. Do we just want to stay the same because we know the outcome and it seems safer? Even if we are miserable I guess we know what we’re going to get.

I used to run from myself, as far as I could. The majority of what I did, said and
thought went against who I really was. Actually I was so far removed I didn’t even know who I really was. The band-aid approach seemed easier than answering the question, do I think I’m enough? So, I “cleaned” up the outside trying to make my appearance look extremely put together. I wanted my book cover to stop traffic, to show I was a worthwhile read (or person). If anyone could have taken an internal picture it would have exposed me in all my chaos, insecurity and pain.

I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t want to live like I believe I am a failure anymore. People ask me what I do (because jobs are a good measure of our worth and quick snapshot of who we really are – sorry I’m being sarcastic, this is an other topic for discussion) and I tell them I am a stay at home wife trying to figure it out. As I’ve gotten over the sticker shock expressions and the “oh, really” responses now, I try observing what others say and don’t let it rattle me.

I’m happy living in my new-found ways even if they seem different, and think this is where I am supposed to be right now in my journey. Do I dare say out loud and believe that I think I’m good at these new endeavors? I want to be strong and confident in myself, but why do I still alter my behavior at times in response to or assumption of others? Do I really believe I have something to offer this world? What gifts have I been given that can help others? And am I even okay with them?

A woman I used to meet with often in college once told me, “Jerilyn, I used to worry all the time about what others thought of me when I entered the lunchroom during my
college years. It all changed one day when I realized that they’re not thinking about me at all, they are thinking about themselves!”

I don’t want to be the only one that gets in the way of the great plans and purposes for my life. That’s what it comes down to, fear or faith.